Kincaid reprimanded by MEA colleagues

PALMER — Matanuska Electric Association Board of Directors member Janet Kincaid will receive a letter of reprimand for violating the cooperative’s bylaws in disclosing confidential information to her son.

“President Lois Lester will write a letter of reprimand to Director Kincaid for inadvertently releasing a matter from executive session,” board member Peter Burchell said in moving for the punishment at Monday’s board meeting. That motion, which carried without dissent, is the culmination of a month of discussion and was tabled at board meetings twice prior to Monday.

The allegations against Kincaid, who was sworn in as a board member in early July, were detailed in two sizable packets distributed — with parts redacted — prior to the board’s Sept. 8 meeting. They appear to be the result of at least a month’s worth of investigation conducted by MEA’s senior management.

Allegations include speaking with MEA employees — something forbidden for board without consultation with General Manager Wayne Carmony — and allegedly providing confidential information from a closed board hearing to her son, David Kincaid, who does contract work for MEA. Carmony wrote in a memo distributed with the packets that Kincaid’s contacts have caused everything from insubordination at MEA to “multiple examples of employee speculation and gossiping about how long it will take Director Kincaid to get rid of the General Manager.”

The first set of allegations — those of talking to employees without Carmony present — were discussed as well Monday. Kincaid said Carmony’s reaction was essentially saying, “Let’s kill the messenger. Let’s not deal with the message.”

She read a prepared statement saying that in one instance — handing over photos of alcohol being transported in company vehicles to a senior manager instead of Carmony — she was following up on a complaint from a co-op member and was unaware she was violating the chain of command.

Another allegation involved Kincaid calling MEA’s main phone line to have crews come look at tree branches close to a power line on one of her rental properties.

“I specifically told them not to hurry,” she said, reading from her statement. “I did not identify myself as a board member. I did give them my name and the address of the apartment complex.”

Public comment Monday came from those who support Kincaid and those who don’t.

“I voted for her because I did not believe that she would just be a rubber stamp,” said Dianne Woodruff, who also sits on Wasilla City Council.

On the other side, William Folsom, representing an organization of former board members calling themselves the Friends of MEA, read a prepared statement.

“We urge the board to carefully consider all this matter and, if you agree with our conclusion that these violations did occur, that you apply the most severe penalty available to you,” he said.

Afterward, Folsom said that in the decade he spent on MEA’s board he had butted heads with Kincaid numerous times.

“For the entire 10 years, people like Janet Kincaid fought everything we did,” Folsom said.

On the matters of contacting employees, a measure to censure Kincaid failed with only one director, Larry DeVilbiss, voting in favor of the censure.

“Our touch point with every employee in this organization is the general manager,” DeVilbiss said.

He also took issue with discussing the matter before a full hearing on all the allegations.

“This is just a piece of the puzzle and we’re kind of going into it backward,” DeVilbiss said. “Nobody is really interested in addressing anything except the issues Director Kincaid has chosen to put before us tonight.”

Lester described the allegations as “ridiculous and terrible” and characterized the investigation into Kincaid’s contacts with MEA employees as a “witch hunt.”

“The pattern is if they don’t want you on the board, if they don’t like you, they have to find a way to get you off the board,” Lester said of MEA management.

After dispatching the question of Kincaid’s contact with employees, the board went into executive session, herding the public out to discuss the matter of discussions between Kincaid and her son. At its conclusion, the board voted to send Kincaid a letter of reprimand and moved on to other topics.

All talk of what, exactly, Kincaid was alleged to have said to her son was redacted from management’s publicly released statements and, at Monday’s meeting, was discussed behind closed doors.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.